Electronic documents are convenient in that they can be created, edited, and transported by a user of a personal computer. However, electronic documents are often tied to a specific computer application of the computer application. Furthermore, the specific computer application is tied to a specific operating system of the personal computer. While it may be convenient to create, edit, and transport the electronic document, exchanging the document between computer systems such as when electronically sending the electronic document to a different user requires that the personal computer of the different user also have the same application, and to the extent the application is limited to a specific operating system, then also have the specific operating system to implement the application.
Even for ubiquitous computer operating systems and corresponding application programs, there is no guarantee that a user being sent an electronic document will have the correct application necessary to view and print the electronic document. Furthermore, where the application being used to generate the electronic document is a custom application written for a specific operating system, the probability is much greater that at some point a user being sent the electronic document for purposes of viewing and/or printing the electronic document will not have the appropriate application. As an additional problem, there may be instances where there are multiple electronic documents corresponding to multiple applications that are being transferred to another user or personal computer for display and printing such that the probability is higher that the destination user and personal computer will not have all of the applications necessary to view and print all of the electronic documents.